Before I could put a single question to
Boris Johnson, he launched into an ebullient account of the political
situation: “We are now neck and neck with Labour with 18 months to go. The
economy turning round. Ship off the rocks.”

The Mayor of London’s favourite new
metaphor is the Costa Concordia. It
possesses the Johnsonian characteristics of being dramatic, popular, original,
amusing and in questionable taste. A more pedantic objection occurred to me: “It’s a
powerful image but the ship isn’t actually moving.”

Johnson admitted that when the new
metaphor was launched by him in a speech to the Institute of Directors, it attracted
a certain amount of criticism: “My Costa Concordia point didn’t go down
well with everyone.”

But he was not prepared to abandon the
image just because a few rather touchy people claimed to be offended. That if
anything made the metaphor more attractive to him.

Half-way through the interview, while explaining
how to get people to vote Conservative, he reverted to it: “I think in the end,
I think my Costa Concordia point was good. They [the voters] will not want to
have the same people back on the bridge who ran the boat aground.”

To liken the Labour leadership to an Italian captain who steered onto the the rocks, abandoned ship and left 32 of his passengers
to perish is unkind. But Johnson is clearly itching to tell the British people that
to put Labour back in charge would be madness.

ConservativeHome selected some of the questions you recently asked and Boris Johnson answers them below.

Liz Stevenson: Can you bring back the Routemaster? If not, what will you replace 'bendy buses' with? The money has been spent on them now and I think most 'Londoners' have moved on. Don't you think that the most pressing transport issue is over crowding on the tubes? Do you have a policy on addressing this?

We need (A) to get Crossrail built as soon as possible, since it will ferry 72,000 people East-west every day. We need (B) to move on from the Metronet fiasco and get the Tube upgraded, jettisoning all ideological posturing about the financing arrangements. We need (C) to prise the thumbs of the RMT from the neck of London's transport system, and I see no reason why we should be able to make a mobile phone the size of a credit card and not be able (D) to introduce air conditioning in the Tube. It is also vital (E) to improve the overground rail links, for instance by connecting the North London line with the South West of the city.

I do indeed intend to phase out the bendy buses and replace them with a new version of the Routemaster, a beautiful and iconic machine which would gladden the hearts of Londoners and be so popular as (F) to help further to alleviate pressure on the Tube.

We also need to make it easier for people to switch between modes of transport, so that they can take bikes on trains… but there will be much more on this and other matters if I am lucky enough to get the nomination.